The present invention relates to a motor vehicle with an environment monitoring system to check a surrounding area of a motor vehicle.
The following discussion of related art is provided to assist the reader in understanding the advantages of the Invention, and is not to be construed as an admission that this related art is prior art to this invention.
To provide a driver and/or driver assist system with a broadest possible range of information about the surrounding area of the motor vehicle, numerous sensors are typically installed in the motor vehicle. To assist the driver in particular when maneuvering or parking, information about the vehicle environment in immediate proximity of the vehicle is wanted. The immediate vehicle environment can be displayed to the driver using so-called “top view” representations for example, which project images taken by cameras in a travel plane and displayed for the driver. To provide the driver during maneuvering substantially accurate information about the driver's position in relation to surrounding obstacles, so-called “corner view” cameras are used which display the immediate vehicle environment in the area of the corners of the motor vehicle, i.e. in particular in the area of the front left and right ends of the bumper of the motor vehicle. For this purpose several individual cameras are used to depict the front corner areas of the motor vehicle. The use of a common camera for both corner areas can also be used.
The placement of the camera typically requires a compromise between pleasing look, optimum detection range, and camera protection and thus a certain minimum distance from the road surface. An appropriate installation site could be a radiator grille. However, such an installation site has the drawback that the design in this region does not allow the camera to adequately image the immediate area in front of the motor vehicle. The outline of the radiator grille and the license plate make it impossible to monitor an area directly in front of the vehicle, when using cameras or other sensors that are arranged on the radiator grille.
It would therefore be desirable and advantageous to provide an improved motor vehicle to obviate prior art shortcomings and to enable a better viewing range of a sensor for ascertaining an immediate area in front of the motor vehicle.